What Happens After the Happy Ending?

    

    We grow up in the fairy tale world where everyone gets a happy ending.  That is not true.  Thing do not always go well for every "good person".  Teaching the next generation to expect a fantasy life is setting them up for their entire world to fall apart.  When expectations, even the unknown expectations, are not met, then it can really rock a person's world.  Some people expect to get all they want out of life or that they can have it all, it is not realistic.  Even those that appear to have it all, have it hard in some areas.  They have had to work harder than most to obtain what they have.  They never stop working.  We should dream and dream big, but then go to God about what He wants to do with our dreams.  Sometimes He changes the picture completely.  He will lead us on how to go after the dreams He has made for us.

    When Israel met the Pharaoh he blessed him.  After all this is the man that saved his favorite son, then the rest of his family.  It was not Israel's desire to dye in Egypt, but his dreams had changed.  He realized that it really doesn't matter where you die.   He was 130 and saw that his life had been good.  He would be surrounded by all his loved ones and that is all that mattered.

    But what happened next?  The food in the land ran out.  Joseph was prepared to take care of the people during the famine.  He had a game plan that would be beneficial for everyone even if it may not seem like it.  People, like Joseph's family, came from all over to get food.  It did not take long for the people to run out of money, after all they were spending but not making any money.  Once things got scarce people had to become creative.  

    It must have been hard on Joseph to have all the multitudes of people coming and begging to him.  He had no way of changing the reality of the situation.  He had done the best he could.  Economically for the nation, he could not give the food away for nothing.  People did what they had to do to survive.  Some people in their desperation gave their land and then their own lives to slavery.  It feels harsh, but if you have a good leader then it can be mutually beneficial.  The way it worked is that they would give 1/5 of all they made for the rest of their lives, but kept 4/5 for themselves.  Not a bad deal.

    Israel was in Egypt 17 years before he died.  He lived a good life and died at 147.  He had accepted where he was going to die, but he still wanted to be buried with Abraham and his family in Canaan.  Life is not a fairy tale.  It all will work out, but rarely the way you probably envisioned it.  You have to fight for what you want in life.  Nothing is achieved by passively living or just existing.  Life is meant to be lived while adapting to the uncontrollable changes that it will throw at you.

Genesis 47